Perl 5.8.0

    There was the faint sound of footsteps.
    "Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last week,"
    said the low priest.
    There was a sound like the flushing of a very old dry lavatory.
    The footsteps stopped.  The High Priest smiled to himself.
    "Right," he said.  "See your two pebbles and raise you two pebbles."
    The low priest threw down his cards.  "Double Onion," he said.
    The High Priest looked down suspiciously.
    The low priest consulted a scrap of paper.  "That's three hundred
    thousand, nine hundred and sixty-four pebbles you owe me," he said.
    There was the sound of footsteps.  The priests exchanged glances.
    "Haven't had one for poisoned-dart alley for quite some time,"
    said the High Priest.
    "Five says he makes it", said the low priest.  "You're on."
    There was a faint clatter of metal points on stone.
    "It's a shame to take your pebbles."
    There were footsteps again.
    -- Terry Pratchett, "Reaper Man"

My thanks go to:

- Hugo van der Sanden for lacking enough self preservation
  instincts to refuse the Perl 5.9 pumpkinship
  (The pumpking is dead! Long live the pumpking!)

- perl5-porters without whom no Perl release would ever be done

- Perl users on non-mainstream platforms who helped to get Perl
  running from the tiniest PDAs to the most hulking big iron

- Nokia Research Center, Helsinki University of Technology
  Computing Center, and Center for Scientific Computing and FUNET
  for giving me resources to develop and maintain Perl

and last but foremost, my lovely wife Elaine will hopefully be glad to
have me back after two years of virtual widowhood.

<ahnold img="http://www.iki.fi/jhi/vacation.jpg">I need a vacation.</ahnold>